Arts and Entertainment
Song of the Day 8/17: Randy Rainbow, “Kamala”
Did you notice that Kamala, when pronounced correctly, sounds a lot like Camelot? Randy Rainbow did, and the rest was … well, not easy, but Randy makes it look easy. There are plenty of musical parodists out there, but nobody else makes videos with such high production values.
Song of the Day 8/16: The Band, “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down”
Does “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down” glorify the Lost Cause? Is it racist? Rolling Stone magazine suddenly thinks so. After praising it for 50 years as a classic of the rock era, the magazine last week published a story in which writer Simon Vozick-Levinson calls it a “troubling requiem for the Confederate cause” […]
Song of the Day 8/15: Santigold, “Lights Out”
Catching up with some new Sylvan Esso on YouTube, this oldie popped up on my feed — is it proper to call a song an oldie if it was released 12 years ago? I remember how ear-catching it was back then, ethereal vocals over a new wave beat, a sound Pitchfork pegged as a blend […]
Song of the Day 8/14: Ray LaMontagne, “Strong Enough”
No message today, just a song I like. I knew without looking that it would be on WXPN’s playlist and sure enough, it’s in heavy rotation. LaMontagne’s soulful Americana sound hits AAA radio’s sweet spot and, geezer that I am, it sounds good to me. It might be the song’s upbeat feel, a welcome respite […]
Song of the Day 8/13: Carly Simon, “You’re So Vain”
An anti-Trump political ad that showed up in my wife’s FB feed yesterday uses Carly Simon’s most famous song to address America’s most notorious narcissist. I didn’t realize until I looked it up that the ad was released back in 2016, and obviously did not stop the election of Orangulus. The song, released in November […]
Song of the Day 8/12: Trini Lopez, “If I Had a Hammer”
Trini Lopez, a Dallas-born ’50s rock-‘n’-roller who rode the Great Folk Music Scare to stardom in the ’60s, died yesterday of the COVID. He was 83. This Pete Seeger tune was his biggest hit, reaching No. 3 in 1963. Lopez started out as a teen, forming a group called the Big Beats. He left for […]
Song of the Day 8/11: Talking Heads, “Burning Down the House”
This is the song Trump should be playing at his rallies. The first single taken from the band’s 1983 “Speaking in Tongues” LP, it became the highest-charting single of their career, peaking at No. 9. The song grew out of a jam by drummer Chris Frantz, who was inspired by seeing a Parliament/Funkadelic concert, and […]
Song of the Day 8/10: Graham Parker and the Rumour, “Devil’s Sidewalk”
This isn’t the same song as Neil Young’s composition that triggered his lawsuit against the Trump campaign — it was written 20 years earlier and in my humble opinion is a much better tune. It appeared on Parker’s 1981 LP “The Up Escalator,” the follow-up to his most successful album “Squeezing Out Sparks.” The album […]
Song of the Day 8/9: Neil Young, “Devil’s Sidewalk”
You’ve heard about Neil Young’s lawsuit against the Trump campaign over its use of two of Young’s songs at campaign events. Naturally, one of the tunes was “Rockin’ in the Free World,” the “Free World” being the preferred fascist/Republican term for the global American Empire. The other was much less familiar — “Devil’s Sidewalk” from […]
Song of the Day 8/7: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, “The Waiting”
Anything can happen, 2016, blah blah blah…what bullshit. At least 52% of the voting populace impatiently awaits the chance to vote against Trump. And the waiting is the hardest part. The song was the first single from Petty’s 1981 LP “Hard Promises.” It reached only No. 19 on the Hot 100, but hit No. 1 […]
Song of the Day 8/5: Curtis Mayfield, “Move On Up”
I’ve seen a lot of stories about musicians upset over candidates using their music without permission; Neil Young has filed suit against the Trump campaign over it. There’s a simple solution for politicians: If you’re not a dick, they’ll probably let you use it, which is why the offenders are almost always Republicans, whose dickish […]
Song of the Day 8/4: Dave Mason and the Quarantines, “Feelin’ Alright”
One thing that’s made the pandemic the teensiest bit more bearable: The scores, or hundreds, of musicians recording from quarantine and posting the results to YouTube. Dave Mason, who wrote this song for Traffic’s debut album in 1968, contacted a bunch of other old dudes — Mick Fleetwood, Sammy Hagar, and several Doobie Brothers, including […]
Song of the Day 8/3: Elliot Lurie and Yonge Guns, “Brandy (You’re a Fine Girl)”
It’s been almost half a century since this pop confection topped the American singles chart for one week in 1972, but it’s still going strong, as evidenced by this new version by Elliot Lurie, who wrote and sang the song for Looking Glass, and the Canadian a cappella quartet Yonge Guns (named for a prominent […]
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